Projects show potential of computer science to profoundly impact prediction

and treatment of genetic diseases.

REDMOND, Wash., April 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Breakthrough
research with the ability to predict and prevent adverse drug responses
within prescription medicine, and provide greater insight into the cause of
neurodegenerative illnesses such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's
disease, are just two of six research projects Microsoft Research today
announced it will support through its Computational Challenges of Genome
Wide Association Studies (GWAS) program.

The supported projects were selected from 40 proposals submitted from
39 academic institutions worldwide. Microsoft Research's goal with funding
computational challenges associated with GWAS research is to aid
researchers in the correlation of genetic patterns with patients' responses
to drugs, diseases, aging or the expression of genetic disorders. The
ultimate goal is to enable lifesaving research through the use of
technology.

"The Microsoft Research GWAS program provides crucial funding at the
interface between information management and quality healthcare," said
Michael Kane, an assistant professor of Computer Technology at Purdue
University and one of the researchers selected to receive support under the
GWAS program. "Patient-specific genotyping to assure prescription drug
safety and drug effectiveness is a major step toward the emergence and
adoption of personalized medicine, and this support is key to facilitating
that vision. Microsoft Corp. has recognized the important role information
technology will play in the future of healthcare. Ultimately, this is about
technology that helps to save lives."

As part of the program, more than $850,000 was shared among six
research institutions.

"When it comes to performing genetic analysis, researchers are often
hampered by the data itself, whether it's inconsistencies in format, the
inability to visualize it, or sheer volume," said Kristin Tolle, program
manager for biomedical computing on the External Research & Programs (ER&P)
team at Microsoft Research. "Through this program, Microsoft Research is
encouraging the development of computer-science solutions to improve data
access, standardization, visualization and tools to help scientists study
the human genome.

"Of all the research areas Microsoft collaborates with, none may have
as much real impact on global economies and the lives of ordinary people as
healthcare," Tolle said.

Enabling this research is part of ER&P's broader efforts to move
research in new directions across nearly every field of computer science,
engineering and general science. Through this and other regional and global
programs, Microsoft Research is partnering with researchers and scientists
to address some of the toughest, most urgent scientific and societal
challenges -- such as those in healthcare -- through enabling technologies
that can provide real solutions.

Other examples of Microsoft's support of healthcare-related research
include the program Cell Phones as a Platform for Healthcare, which sought
novel healthcare solutions that are accessible, affordable and relevant for
smart mobile phones; and the Intelligent Systems for Assisted Cognition
Awards, which provided funding for technologies to assist people living
with disorders such as autism and Alzheimer's disease. In the past six
months alone, Microsoft External Research & Programs has awarded more than
$2.5 million to academic researchers and scientists in support of
healthcare research.

Details of the six winners and a description of their projects are as
follows:

* Purdue University, Michael Kane and John Springer: "PGRx: An

Interactive Software System for Integrating Clinical Genotyping With

Prescription Drug Safety Assurance." According to a survey published

in the Journal of American Pharmacists Association in 2001,

drug-related mortality and morbidity was estimated at approximately

10 percent of all healthcare costs in the U.S. It is estimated that

adverse drug reactions are the cause of more than 200,000 deaths

each year. Kane and Springer will work to develop a software and

data management system to predict and prevent adverse drug

responses, and provide in-depth training for physicians and

pharmacists to better understand the link between genes, drug

metabolism and the risk of adverse drug responses within

prescription medicine.

* Translational Genomics Research Institute, John Pearson: "A

Universal Data Format for Genotype Microarrays." Combining data

generated in genome research is problematic due to the variety of

software platforms in use today. Pearson will work to create a

universal data format that would accommodate multiple vendor

platforms into a single file and software library. The software

library would allow for open use by the research community and

commercial proprietary use by platform vendors.

* National Institutes of Health; Johns Hopkins Hospital, Bryan

Traynor: "Genome Wide Association Study of Amyotrophic Lateral

Sclerosis in Finland." Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a

rapidly progressive, fatal disorder. The overall purpose of this

project is to discover the genes that are relevant to development of

ALS by studying 489 Finnish ALS cases. A more comprehensive

understanding of ALS biology also may provide insight into the

pathogenesis of other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's

disease and Alzheimer's disease.

* Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego;

Division of Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley;

Trey Ideker and Richard Karp: "Pathway-Based Association: A New

Paradigm for Genome Wide Association Studies." Ideker and Karp

propose to help explain the associations captured by GWAS in terms

of known gene and protein interactions by developing computational

tools that help explain linkages between signaling, regulatory and

metabolic pathways to the genes that are associated with a disorder.

If successful, this research could have a positive impact on a broad

range of genomic studies.

* Columbia University, George Hripcsak: "Phenotypic Pipeline for

Genome-wide Association Studies." Large-scale studies involving many

subjects, or even smaller studies in which subjects are selected

from a larger population, will require innovative means to extract a

reliable, useful phenotype from electronic health records data.

Hripcsak proposes to develop advanced informatics methods to convert

raw health records data into usable research information.

* University of the Republic of Uruguay; Pasteur Institute at

Montevideo, Raul Ruggia and Hugo Naya: "Data Quality Management for

Model Improvement in GWAS." This project addresses the problems of

building a data-quality management environment for the biological

area, which would enable the user to define and evaluate

biological-oriented data-quality properties over specific data

sources. The biological-oriented properties would be defined in

terms of the basic ones, and the environment would use the existing

techniques that manage basic quality properties. The main expected

outcomes will consist of biological-oriented data-quality properties

and a prototyped environment to manage and evaluate these quality

properties on biological databases.

About Microsoft Research

Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both
basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering.
Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce
the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing
technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and
collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to
advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition,
user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and
methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical
sciences. Microsoft Research currently employs more than 800 people in six
labs located in Redmond, Wash.; Cambridge, Mass.; Silicon Valley, Calif.;
Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft
Research collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to
enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire technological
innovation, and broadly advance the field of computer science. More
information can be found at http://www.research.microsoft.com.

About Microsoft Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the
worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and
businesses realize their full potential.

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